> Skip to content
FEATURED:
  • Public Perception of College
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
  • News
  • Advice
  • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Technology
    • The Workplace
  • Current Issue
  • Virtual Events
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Career Resources
Sign In
ADVERTISEMENT
daily briefing newsletter ulve icon.jpg

Daily Briefing

Get ready for your day with this essential rundown of what’s happening in higher ed. Delivered every weekday morning. For Digital Plus, Print & Digital, and Premium subscribers only.

August 11, 2023
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Show more sharing options
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
  • Copy Link URLCopied!
  • Print

From: Rick Seltzer, The Chronicle of Higher Education

Subject: Daily Briefing: Dual enrollment for every 9th grader?

Good morning, and welcome to Friday, August 11. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: rick.seltzer@chronicle.com.

Behind California’s new dual-enrollment push

Sonya Christian, who started in June as chancellor of the 116-institution California Community Colleges system

We're sorry. Something went wrong.

We are unable to fully display the content of this page.

The most likely cause of this is a content blocker on your computer or network.

Please allow access to our site, and then refresh this page. You may then be asked to log in, create an account if you don't already have one, or subscribe.

If you continue to experience issues, please contact us at 202-466-1032 or help@chronicle.com

Good morning, and welcome to Friday, August 11. Rick Seltzer wrote today’s Briefing. Julia Piper compiled Comings and Goings. Get in touch: rick.seltzer@chronicle.com.

Behind California’s new dual-enrollment push

Sonya Christian, who started in June as chancellor of the 116-institution California Community Colleges system, would like all ninth graders to take college courses. It will improve equity and encourage college attendance, she told the Daily Briefing this week. Our conversation, which follows, has been edited for brevity and clarity.

Can you tell us about this vision?

We are looking at dual enrollment as one of the mechanisms to transform access to higher ed. We made a serious dent in getting more high-school students to engage in college courses with legislation here in California.

When you look at the percentage of students taking advantage of this legislation, and you look at the senior year in high school, it’s 14 percent. And when you get down to ninth grade in high school, it’s 6 percent. When we disaggregated the data, it was almost continuing systems of privilege. Students who had the higher propensity of doing AP classes were the ones coming to dual enrollment.

Do you have specific goals for students?

Imagine if all of them, their default ninth-grade schedule, had at least one college credit, so they’re introduced to college. They start thinking about ‘What does college look like?’ and start working with their guidance counselors. They start looking at, at least doing 12 college credits by the end of the 12th grade. So that is the goal: Every California high-school student will complete 12 college credits as a default.

The idea of default is also an important idea. If we do it by invitation, what we have noticed is that those who know about it know to say yes to the invitation. If it is a default schedule, and then you have to opt out, then our ability to address equity and enrollment for our low-income students and students of color, it makes us much more successful.

The number of students attending community colleges cratered during the pandemic, but dual enrollment is up. Can this effort also bolster enrollment?

The California Community Colleges have lost about 300,000 students. We went from 2.1 million to 1.8 million. Dual enrollment will increase enrollment.

Is it good for student success and equity? Yes, the data shows it. Would it increase the enrollment of the community colleges? Is it a smart business move? Yes.

What obstacles will you have to navigate?

The high-school and college structures are extremely different. Our high-school teachers have different levels of qualifications. So there is a conversation: Are they minimally qualified? What does the articulation look like?

Does that mean ninth graders would be taught by high-school teachers and not community-college faculty members?

We have three different ways of doing what we’re calling early college. One is a class taught at a high school by a high-school teacher, and students get both the high-school requirement met and the college requirement met. Another option is where college faculty go to the high school, or they also teach online. And then the third model is where high-school students come to the college class. We are trying to integrate all of them.

Are all high-school students really ready for college-level work?

I believe that our high-school students have a lot of potential.

For the most part, the course that they would take in ninth grade would be an intro-to-college student-development class, typically put on by our counselors, who are trained in understanding human development.

In addition, some faculty feel a kind-of-fun class — a gen-ed requirement, either music or those kinds of electives in the ninth or 10th grade — is a good way to get them to have a good experience.

Quick hits

  • Ex-community-college leaders indicted: A grand jury returned indictments against two former leaders of Eastern Gateway Community College, in Ohio, for allegedly using campus credit cards for purchases unrelated to the college. A former president is accused of spending $32,704 between 2015 and 2019, and a former vice president and chief of staff allegedly spent $10,415 in 2018 and 2019. (Herald-Star)
  • Western Kentucky stocks Narcan in student housing: Nasal sprays of the drug for treating opioid overdoses will be available in all residence halls and Greek-life houses, and the university will train resident assistants in administering it. (WKU)
  • Prosecutors drop spitting charges against New College of Florida student: Libby Harrity had been charged with misdemeanor battery for allegedly spitting on Christopher Rufo, a conservative activist and trustee at New College of Florida, during a protest in May. (Herald-Tribune)
  • New College of Florida moves to eliminate gender studies: Trustees at the liberal-arts college voted to pursue cutting the program as they execute a conservative overhaul prompted by appointees of Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican and a presidential contender. Several bureaucratic steps remain before the program is officially eliminated. (The Chronicle)

Stat of the day

72 percent

That’s the share of female undergraduates who told Gallup they’d experienced stress for much of the previous day. That’s substantially higher than the 56 percent of male students who said the same.

Female students were similarly more likely to experience worry and sadness. They were also less likely than male students to say they’d felt enjoyment.

The context: Students who consider dropping out often cite emotional stress. The stakes are high, as colleges were under pressure to treat student mental health even before the pandemic worsened the crisis.

Quote of the day

“The shirts are inappropriate, offensive, and tone-deaf.”

—Derrick Gragg, Northwestern University’s athletic director

Gragg criticized football coaches for wearing “Cats Against the World” T-shirts emblazoned with the former head coach Pat Fitzgerald’s No. 51, from when he played for the university. Fitzgerald was fired this summer as a hazing scandal swept the program. But a wide receiver on the team, Bryce Kirtz, called the shirts a reminder that the team should stick together.

The bigger picture: Northwestern’s leaders say they’re committed to deal with issues related to hazing. But this episode shows that culture change is hard, especially on short notice.

Weekend reads

  • ‘Sexism, Even Misogyny’: 3 Female Leaders Explain Why Higher Ed’s Glass Ceiling Hasn’t Cracked (The Chronicle)
  • I Was Wrong About Trigger Warnings (The Atlantic)
  • College Sports Is a Failed Experiment in Anarcho-Capitalism (New York magazine)
  • Colleges Spend Like There’s No Tomorrow. ‘These Places Are Just Devouring Money.’ (The Wall Street Journal)
  • The MOVEit Spree Is as Bad as — or Worse Than — You Think It Is (Cybersecurity Dive)

Comings and goings

  • Page Hetzel, associate dean and chief marketing officer at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, has been named vice president for marketing and communications at the University of Rochester, in New York.
  • Bob McQuinn, vice president for alumni relations and development at Northwestern University, plans to retire at the end of October and move to an emeritus “half-time role” where he will remain active in fund raising.
  • Frank B. Ashley III, executive associate dean and senior professor in the Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University at College Station, has been named acting dean of the school. Ashley will fill the vacancy created when Mark A. Welsh III was named acting president of Texas A&M after M. Katherine Banks resigned.
  • Gene Smith, athletic director at Ohio State University, will retire next year.

To submit a new-hire announcement, email people@chronicle.com.

Footnote

What do you get when you mash up a state flagship with a well-known bourbon brand? The University of Kentucky’s James B. Beam Institute for Kentucky Spirits, which opened this week, about four years after the announcement of a $5-million partnership between the university and the liquor giant Beam Suntory.

The facility includes a research distillery with a 30-foot column still and a barrel house for aging whiskey. The university calls it the largest teaching distillery in the world.

While many colleges remain leery of liquor because of concerns about binge-drinking students, Kentucky isn’t whisky sour, and is instead giving a shot in the arm to one of the state’s most-famous industries.

Rick Seltzer
Rick is a senior writer at The Chronicle and author of the Daily Briefing newsletter. He has been an editor at Higher Ed Dive and a reporter and projects editor at Inside Higher Ed. Before focusing on higher-education journalism, he covered business beats for local and regional publications.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Accessibility Statement
    Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • DEI Commitment Statement
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
    Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Institutional Subscriptions
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
    Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2023 The Chronicle of Higher Education
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin